Press Release from Umeå University

More than 115 million granted to four research projects

[2012-10-08] The Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation will grant more than SEK 115 million to four projects led by researchers at Umeå University. An international committee evaluated the projects as frontier research that may lead to new scientific breakthroughs.

“We are really pleased with the news. Grants in this dimension are rarely disbursed to individual projects. The researchers at Umeå University, who are primarily responsible for the four major grants, show that their research is internationally high-class,” says Vice-Chancellor Lena Gustafsson.

Applications to the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation were assessed by an international evaluation group. Based on the group's assessment, the foundation decided to disburse grants worth more than SEK 700 million to 25 different projects. More than 16 percent of the total sum goes to projects at Umeå University. The projects usually run for five years.

“This volume and length of external funding will help our researchers to work with long-term research that can keep abreast, be risky and lead to truly original and creative findings. Thanks to these grants, our researchers can continue their successful work in areas such as diabetes, ALS, cancer and molecular plant sciences,” says Lena Gustafsson.

Researchers at Umeå University are the lead applicants for the following four projects:

“ALS as a Model System for Studying Degenerative Brain Diseases”, Peter Andersen

”Novel molecular cancer drug targets and biomarkers”, Marene Landström

“Bevarande av betacellsfunktion hos typ 2-diabetiker genom aktivering av AMPK”, Helena Edlund

“ShapeSystems – Systemsbiology of Plant Cell Shape”, Markus Grebe

Editor: Karin Wikmann

Link to news:
http://www.umu.se/english/news/.cid199361